History of Lincoln Park, Chicago: From City Cemetery to Lakefront Neighborhood

Lincoln Park began as Chicago’s City Cemetery. In 1865 the land became a lakefront park named for Abraham Lincoln, and the neighborhood west of it grew from German farms and workers’ cottages into one of the city’s most sought-after places to live. Along the way came the Lincoln Park Zoo (1868), the Great Chicago Fire (1871), McCormick Seminary and DePaul University, a pioneering postwar conservation movement, displacement of the Puerto Rican community and the Young Lords’ response, and decades of landmarking and redevelopment.

Lincoln Park history at a glance

Original use of the park land	Chicago City Cemetery, set aside starting in 1843
Named for Lincoln	June 12, 1865, after his assassination (previously Lake Park)
Park size today	About 1,208 acres along more than six miles of lakefront
Zoo founded	1868, with a gift of swans from New York’s Central Park
Great Chicago Fire	October 8–10, 1871; burned through Old Town and into Mid-North before dying out near Fullerton
Conservatory built	1890–1895, designed by Joseph Lyman Silsbee with M.E. Bell
DePaul University founded	1898, as St. Vincent’s College; renamed DePaul in 1907
Lincoln Park Conservation Association	Founded 1954; area named a conservation area in 1956
Peak population	102,396 (1950); 70,492 in 2020
Oldest landmark districts	McCormick Row House, Mid-North and Old Town Triangle (all 1977)

Before the park: trails, farms and the City Cemetery

Before the neighborhood existed, today’s Lincoln Park was lakefront dunes, swamp and prairie crossed by Native American trails, and its first big civic use was as a burial ground.

Old trails, new streets. Clark Street follows the old Green Bay Trail, and Lincoln Avenue follows Little Fort Road. Both were Native American routes north from the Chicago River.
The City Cemetery. Starting in 1843, land near today’s North Avenue was used as the City Cemetery. It was later divided into a potter’s field and Catholic, Jewish and general sections. Thousands of Confederate prisoners who died at Camp Douglas during the Civil War were first buried there. Their remains were later moved to Oak Woods Cemetery.
Calls to move the dead. In 1858 Dr. John H. Rauch argued that lakefront burials threatened public health and proposed planting trees on the land instead. The idea was put off during the Civil War.

Inland, German immigrants farmed the area north of the city in the mid-1800s, raising celery, potatoes and cabbage. Brewer Michael Diversey, whose name is on Diversey Parkway, donated land for St. Michael’s Church, first dedicated in 1852 to serve German Catholics. Shoemaking, brewing and railroad work soon joined farming.

From Lake Park to Lincoln Park: the 1860s

The park started in 1860 as Lake Park, a 60-acre parcel of former cemetery land, and was renamed for Abraham Lincoln on June 12, 1865, two months after his assassination.

1864: The City Council voted to add the cemetery land north of North Avenue to the park and relocate the graves. An estimated 35,000 people had been buried in the cemetery’s sections.
1865: After the renaming, landscape gardener Swain Nelson was hired, and the first park plan went into effect.
1868: The Lincoln Park Zoo began with a gift of mute swans from New York’s Central Park. In 1878 city authorities declared the zoo must always be free, and it still charges no admission.
1869: The park grew to about 250 acres, taking in more of the old cemetery, and the Lincoln Park Commission went on to relocate burials and enlarge the grounds with landfill.

The Couch Tomb and the graves left behind

Not every grave left. The Couch Tomb, a limestone family mausoleum near the Chicago History Museum, is the most visible leftover of the City Cemetery. Hotelier Ira Couch (1806–1857), who ran the Tremont House, hired John M. Van Osdel, often called Chicago’s first professional architect, to design it, and it was built in 1858. Why it stayed is not entirely clear. The Chicago Park District suggests relatives found it too costly to move the roughly 50-ton structure. In 1899 the park commissioners decided to keep it as a reminder of the park’s origins, and it was restored in 1999. Construction work in 1998 uncovered more 19th-century burials, a sign that not all remains were moved.

The Great Chicago Fire and rebuilding (1871–1900)

The Great Chicago Fire of October 8–10, 1871, burned north through Old Town and into what is now Mid-North before dying out near Fullerton Avenue, then the city’s northern limit.

Across the city the fire killed an estimated 300 people, destroyed about 17,000 buildings and left more than 90,000 people homeless. In Old Town, St. Michael’s Church was gutted, but its walls survived, and the parish rebuilt inside them, rededicating the church about two years later. A handful of pre-Fire buildings also survived in Mid-North, including the 1869 Bellinger cottage on Hudson Avenue.

Rebuilding shaped the streets you see today:

Wood, then masonry. Residents first put up small frame workers’ cottages. After another fire in 1874, the city’s fire limits were extended into the area and wood construction was banned. That’s why the 1875 Italianate row houses on Burling and Fremont streets are some of the earliest masonry groups built under the new rules.
Building just outside the rules. North of Fullerton, then part of Lake View Township, builders could avoid the city’s stricter code. The Arlington-Deming area filled in with frame cottages in the 1870s and 1880s.
Fashionable blocks. The park made the eastern blocks more desirable, and stone mansions and row houses rose near it. Daniel Crilly built Crilly Court in Old Town starting in 1885. Andrew McNally’s 1875 limestone row houses still stand at 1928–36 N. Lincoln Ave.

Meanwhile the park itself grew. Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s statue Abraham Lincoln: The Man was unveiled near North Avenue on October 22, 1887, paid for by a bequest from lumber merchant Eli Bates. In 1889 a heated lily pool was built to grow tropical water lilies. Between 1890 and 1895 the Lincoln Park Commission replaced an older greenhouse with the Lincoln Park Conservatory, designed by Joseph Lyman Silsbee with M.E. Bell. North Avenue Beach opened in 1895.

Institutions that shaped the neighborhood

Three institutions, McCormick Seminary, DePaul University and Children’s Memorial Hospital, did as much as the park to set Lincoln Park’s character.

McCormick Theological Seminary (1859–1975)

The Presbyterian seminary, then the Theological Seminary of the Northwest, moved to Lincoln Park in 1859. It was renamed in 1886 for reaper maker Cyrus McCormick, one of its trustees. To bring in rental income, it built the Queen Anne row houses of what is now the McCormick Row House District between 1882 and 1889. See our McCormick Row House District article. Facing money trouble and falling enrollment, the seminary moved to Hyde Park in 1975, and DePaul took over its Lincoln Park land and buildings in the mid-1970s.

DePaul University (1898–today)

The Vincentians founded St. Vincent’s College in 1898 to serve the children of Catholic immigrants, and re-chartered it as DePaul University in 1907. Its Lincoln Park campus now covers about 36 acres, including the former seminary land. The DePaul Art Museum moved into its own building at 935 W. Fullerton in 2011 and closed on June 30, 2026.

Children’s Memorial Hospital (1882–2012)

In 1882, nurse Julia Foster Porter opened an eight-bed cottage hospital for children at Halsted and Belden in memory of her son. It became Children’s Memorial Hospital in 1904 and grew on a triangular block near Lincoln, Fullerton and Halsted. After about 130 years in Lincoln Park, it moved to Streeterville on June 9, 2012, as Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital.

The 20th-century park: landfill, the WPA and lakefront landmarks

Through the 20th century, Lincoln Park grew to about 1,208 acres, mainly through landfill in the lake, and gained many of the buildings residents still use.

1912: The building that now houses North Pond restaurant went up as a warming shelter for ice skaters. The Lion House opened at the zoo the same year.
1920: The Prairie-style building at Fullerton and the lake opened as the Chicago Daily News Fresh Air Fund Sanitarium, a free summer health facility for children. It closed in 1939, served as a USO center during World War II, and became Theater on the Lake in 1953.
1936–1938: Alfred Caldwell redesigned the old lily pool in the Prairie School style as a WPA project. Read our article on the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool.
1938–1941: New Deal funding paid for landfill, a widened Lake Shore Drive and new beaches, which pushed the park north toward Foster Avenue. A final expansion in the 1950s brought it to its current size.
1968: Protesters and police clashed in the park during the Democratic National Convention.
1994: Lincoln Park was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

For today’s park, beaches and trail, see parks and the lakefront, and for everything else about life here, our complete Lincoln Park guide and FAQ.

Decline, conservation and urban renewal (1930s–1960s)

During the Depression and after the war, much of Lincoln Park’s housing was subdivided and neglected. In response, residents built one of the nation’s earliest neighborhood conservation movements.

In Old Town, around 1900, many German families moved north into Lake View, and newer immigrants, including Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Serbian, Italian and Latino newcomers, took their place. By the 1930s and 1940s many large houses had become rooming houses and cut-up apartments, and parts of the area were badly overcrowded. Lincoln Park’s population peaked at 102,396 in 1950 and then fell steeply, to 57,146 by 1980.

1948: Old Town residents formed the Old Town Triangle Association and launched the Old Town Art Fair.
1950: The Mid-North Association was founded.
1954: The Lincoln Park Conservation Association (LPCA) formed to cover the whole community area. It promoted private rehabilitation and used housing-code enforcement and federal urban-renewal money.
1956: Lincoln Park was officially named a conservation area. In the 1960s the city carried out a General Neighborhood Renewal Plan. The LPCA tried to avoid the wholesale clearance seen in places like Hyde Park, but renewal still meant demolitions, especially in the southwest of the neighborhood.
1959–1963: Sheffield (1959), Wrightwood Neighbors (1962) and RANCH Triangle (1963) associations formed. Read about these pockets today in our neighborhoods guide.

The Puerto Rican community and the Young Lords

From the 1950s into the 1970s, Lincoln Park was home to one of Chicago’s first large Puerto Rican communities, and the Young Lords organized here against displacement from urban renewal.

Many Puerto Rican families came to Lincoln Park after slum clearance displaced them from neighborhoods farther south, including the area known as “La Clark.” They settled largely in the western and southwestern blocks around Armitage and Halsted. Young people there faced hostility from established white gangs. The Young Lords started around 1959 as a youth social group and street gang for protection.

In 1968, as renewal plans threatened more homes, José “Cha Cha” Jiménez led the Young Lords toward political organizing. They focused on housing, police conduct and community services, and they worked alongside the Black Panther Party and other groups in the original Rainbow Coalition.

1969, McCormick Seminary: The Young Lords and allies occupied a seminary building for close to a week. Sources disagree on whether it began in April or May. The seminary agreed to commit $600,000 toward housing, open its facilities to the community and publicly oppose urban renewal.
1969, the “People’s Church”: The group occupied the Armitage Avenue Methodist Church, with the support of its pastor, Rev. Bruce Johnson. It became their headquarters and housed a daycare and community programs.
1970: A free health clinic opened, staffed by volunteer medical professionals.
Outcome: The city’s urban renewal department rejected the Young Lords’ proposal for low-income housing in Lincoln Park, and the Chicago chapter ended its operations in 1972. Rev. Johnson and his wife, Eugenia Ransier Johnson, were murdered, and the case has never been solved.

The Concerned Citizens of Lincoln Park also argued that renewal was pushing out Puerto Rican and Black residents. This chapter is an important part of the neighborhood’s story. DePaul’s Richardson Library holds archives on it, and WTTW’s Chicago Stories covered it in a 2024 documentary.

Gentrification, landmarking and today (1970s–2026)

From the 1970s on, land values in Lincoln Park climbed steeply, and by the end of the century it ranked among Chicago’s most affluent, highest-status neighborhoods, while preservationists landmarked many of its oldest blocks.

Single professionals and couples moved into renovated greystones and new high-rises, and many lower-income residents left. The population bottomed out in 1980 and then rose again, to 70,492 in the 2020 Census.

Landmark districts

The City of Chicago protects the neighborhood’s 19th-century fabric through a series of landmark districts:

1977: McCormick Row House (May 4), Mid-North (August 31) and Old Town Triangle.
1989: Arlington & Roslyn Place.
2000s: Burling Row House (2000), Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool (2002), Armitage-Halsted (2003), Fremont Row House and the Mid-North extension (2004), Bissell Street and Arlington-Deming (2007), and Lincoln Avenue Row House (2009).
2016: Lakeview Avenue Row House.

The much larger Sheffield Historic District has been on the National Register since 1976. That listing doesn’t block demolition, and Landmarks Illinois counts more than 350 teardowns there.

Lincoln Common and the North Branch

After Children’s Memorial left in 2012, developers McCaffery and Hines turned its roughly six-acre site at 2300 N. Lincoln Ave. into Lincoln Common. They broke ground on May 4, 2017. The project includes two 20-story apartment towers with about 540 units, condominiums, a senior living building, an office building, about 100,000 square feet of retail and more than an acre of public open space. The 1931 boiler house and laundry building, designed by Holabird and Roche, were restored, and a portico from the old hospital was saved for a garden.

On the western edge, the City’s 2017 North Branch Framework opened the old industrial corridor to mixed uses. The Lincoln Yards megaproject on the former Finkl Steel site stalled after one building, and the northern section passed to a new team. In early 2026 the City Council approved their Foundry Park plan, which calls for about 3,200 homes and new parkland. For what this means for housing, see our real estate guide and our summer 2025 housing market report.

Lincoln Park history timeline

Key dates in Lincoln Park’s history, from the City Cemetery to Foundry Park:

Year	Event
1843	Lakefront land near North Avenue begins use as the City Cemetery
1852	St. Michael’s Church first dedicated for German Catholics
1858	Couch Tomb built; Dr. John Rauch urges moving the cemetery
1859	Presbyterian seminary (later McCormick) moves to Lincoln Park
1860	Lake Park established on 60 acres of cemetery land
1865	Park renamed Lincoln Park on June 12
1868	Lincoln Park Zoo begins with swans from Central Park
1869	Park grows to about 250 acres, taking in more cemetery land
1871	Great Chicago Fire burns Old Town and into Mid-North
1874–1875	Wood construction banned; Burling and Fremont row houses built
1882	Julia Foster Porter opens the hospital that becomes Children’s Memorial
1882–1889	McCormick Seminary row houses built
1887	Saint-Gaudens Lincoln statue unveiled
1890–1895	Lincoln Park Conservatory built
1898	St. Vincent’s College (DePaul University from 1907) founded
1912	Skaters’ shelter (now North Pond) and zoo Lion House built
1920	Fresh Air Fund Sanitarium opens; becomes Theater on the Lake in 1953
1936–1938	Alfred Caldwell redesigns the Lily Pool
1948	Old Town Triangle Association and Old Town Art Fair begin
1950	Population peaks at 102,396
1954	Lincoln Park Conservation Association founded
1956	Lincoln Park designated an urban renewal conservation area
1968–1969	Young Lords turn to organizing; McCormick Seminary occupation
1975	McCormick Seminary moves to Hyde Park; its campus passes to DePaul
1976	Sheffield Historic District listed on the National Register
1977	McCormick Row House, Mid-North and Old Town Triangle landmark districts
1994	Lincoln Park (the park) listed on the National Register
2006	Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool named a National Historic Landmark
2012	Children’s Memorial moves to Streeterville
2017	Lincoln Common breaks ground; North Branch Framework adopted
2020	Census counts 70,492 residents
2026	City Council approves Foundry Park on the former Lincoln Yards north site

Frequently asked questions

Was Lincoln Park in Chicago really a cemetery?

Yes. The south end of Lincoln Park, near North Avenue, was Chicago’s City Cemetery starting in 1843. In 1864 the city voted to turn the land into parkland and relocate graves, but not all remains were moved, and the Couch Tomb still stands near the Chicago History Museum.

When was Lincoln Park named after Abraham Lincoln?

The park, originally called Lake Park, was renamed Lincoln Park on June 12, 1865, about two months after Lincoln’s assassination. The surrounding neighborhood later took its name from the park.

How old is the Lincoln Park Zoo?

The Lincoln Park Zoo dates to 1868, when New York’s Central Park gave Chicago a gift of swans. It is one of the oldest zoos in the United States, has been free since city officials required it in 1878, and covers about 49 acres.

Did the Great Chicago Fire reach Lincoln Park?

Yes. The 1871 fire burned through Old Town and into the eastern part of today’s Mid-North District before dying out near Fullerton Avenue, then the city’s northern edge. A few pre-Fire buildings survive, including the 1869 Bellinger cottage on Hudson Avenue.

Who were the Young Lords in Lincoln Park?

The Young Lords were a Puerto Rican youth group in Lincoln Park that José “Cha Cha” Jiménez turned into a political organization in 1968. They opposed urban renewal displacement, occupied McCormick Seminary in 1969, and ran a daycare and free health clinic before the Chicago chapter ended in 1972.

What was on the Lincoln Common site before?

Lincoln Common, at 2300 N. Lincoln Ave. near Fullerton and Halsted, was the campus of Children’s Memorial Hospital, which grew from an 1882 cottage hospital and moved to Streeterville in 2012. Developers McCaffery and Hines began the mixed-use redevelopment in 2017.

When did DePaul University come to Lincoln Park?

DePaul was founded in Lincoln Park in 1898 as St. Vincent’s College by the Vincentians and took the name DePaul University in 1907. It expanded in the 1970s by acquiring the former McCormick Theological Seminary campus.

Sources

Curious how a particular block or building fits into this story? Joe Bjorklund loves talking Lincoln Park history. Reach out anytime.

Last updated October 2026 by Joe Bjorklund, Baird & Warner Lincoln Park.